Hearts and beyond | Alice in Borderland

Prologue

What have I done to deserve this?

Well, other than minding my own fucking business. 

I had been peacefully living, without bothering another soul in sight. My television was up and running, the air conditioner was doing it's best at providing me the alternative version of Antarctica, and my snacks were perfectly restocked next to my bed, looking as tempting as ever before. 

All of a sudden, seeing that my peace was never allowed to last, a loud shriek could be heard from outside of my room. But it was not one of a person's, instead, it was the familiar screeching of an activated firework, just like the ones you'd hear on New Years.  

But that was the problem; it was not the New Years. Or Christmas. Or anything worth actually celebrating. 

So obviously, I would've questioned it's appearance. And so, I proceeded to make the biggest mistake of my life, which was throwing the covers over and leaving my sweet, beautiful bed, that had never done me any wrong. 

My bare feet touched the wooden flooring, cold against the cool air as I walked towards my window. I dragged opened my curtain, and sure enough, there it was; fireworks. Pink, red, blue and yellow, they split the sky into two with their flamboyant hues. I wondered if anyone else would find it weird, and I was sure many would. 

Nonetheless, I brushed it off as just some stupid kids playing around or something, and flung my curtains shut once again. 

And that was where everything went downhill. 

First of all, my precious television was not working in the slightest. Hell, it wasn't even turning on. The black screen stared back at my mourning face, as if it was mocking me as I grieved for my loss.  

The second, was when I realized that the air conditioner had stopped working. The buzzing, whooshing sound it hummed as it functioned had drowned into an eerie silence, which I really hated. 

 And last of all, the one thing I loved most in my life; my phone, couldn't connect to anything at all. I knew my friends were somewhere around the same hotel as where I was currently residing it; we were all classmates, more like acquaintances I could deal with, whom had been accepted into an exchanged student program. That was the whole reason I was even in Japan in the first place.

But right now, my phone was giving me the silent treatment, and I fought the urge to fling it against the wall for being disobedient. Taking a last glance at my lovely alone-watching tv-time gone wrong, I threw on a coat over my pajamas and got out of my room. My classmates had been assigned to rooms really close to me, so that's where I went.

My fist colliding with the surface of the door reverbed through the silence of the hall, somehow foreboding. I didn't like what was happening anymore. My mood had went from being completely relaxed and humoring, to literally being shit scared. I considered the possibilities of the hotel being haunted, and turned it down in my head.

No way. It's probably a power shortage or something... or maybe Japanese people had some traditional festival that involved fireworks and cutting the internet off that I apparently wasn't informed of. 

Long story short, it was not. 

You know in movies, they make it seem really cool and fascinating when things like this happen? People disappearing, electricity's out, and it was the middle of the night... cool right?

No. Not at all. In fact, I was shit scared. 

There was literally no one. I went around, banging on every door I could find, but not a soul answered. I screamed, real awkwardly, and listened to my own voice echoing through the hall. Using my brain for the first time that night, I returned to my room and found a flashlight I had very intelligentially prepared beforehand.